


Gloved Hands Grasp for Warmth

by Lazchan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 05:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazchan/pseuds/Lazchan
Summary: When Viktor started skating, he was five years old and it wasn’t anything fancy or special; no one was staring at his steps and his movements, no one tried to braid his hair or dictate his clothing. The world didn’t hold their breath when he stepped out onto the ice.





	Gloved Hands Grasp for Warmth

When Viktor started skating, he was five years old and it wasn’t anything fancy or special; no one was staring at his steps and his movements, no one tried to braid his hair or dictate his clothing. The world didn’t hold their breath when he stepped out onto the ice.

When Viktor was five, there were no fancy rinks or applause in his ears from strangers. The only clapping came from his mother, whe was wrapped up in layers of old coats and scarves, eyes shining above red cheeks. The only encouragement came from her soft words and then shouts as he kept upright on winter-frozen ice, uneven under borrowed blades. 

He didn’t skate alone then, his mother’s hands were in his own, gloved fingers holding tight to his hands so that he wouldn’t fall. Her eyes were on his the entire time and she only let go when he asked, so that he could make her proud as he moved across the ice. 

When Viktor was five, skating was nothing more but the moments he shared with his mother, her laughter combining with his as she showed him bunny hops and waltz jumps and spun like a ballerina. Skating was fun and had always been the best when shared with someone else. 

He had two years of skating for just friends and family, first on country ponds and then town rinks; when he was about to turn seven, someone spotted him as he danced across the ice, a routine that he had created just for his mother. She no longer skated on the ice with him, but there was still the grace in her movements and the smile on her face as he let his love of skating grow. 

When Viktor was seven, he was no longer just skating for himself and those he loved. His love for skating was now going to be shared with the world. 

Sharing his skating with others didn’t make it any less  _ fun, _ of course. It was more fun in a way; there were other people that shared his love of being able to fly across the ice, to spin and jump and make a dance on ice skates. 

Skating for Yakov Feltsman gave him a wider scope for his talents, an encouraging voice and something in Viktor’s life that he hadn’t had before then--a stern figure that lectured and guided with a firm hand. HIs mother taught him to glide, Yakov taught him to  _ fly _ . 

~

Being trained by Yakov meant more time away from his mother and more time away from his mother meant that he leaned on Yakov more. It wasn’t the same, silly and giggly relationship he had with his mother. There were no blinis with jam, snuck late at night. There wasn’t someone to hold his hand through the violent storms that came up the coast. There wasn’t the soft claps and sweet smiles anymore.

As the years slowly went by and the visits between training and competitions and camps became more infrequent, the closeness that he had shared with his mother had somehow vanished in the marks his skates made in foreign rinks. 

When he was nine and back from his first real competition, certificate in hand, he flung himself into his mother’s arms, but she didn’t hug back as tightly as before. Her hands still smoothed over his hair -- longer now, so that it could swing out in an arc as he spun in circles -- but her smile was soft and sad and Viktor felt a trickle of fear run down his spine. 

She came to his performance after that, wrapped up in scarves and layers of coats again, her eyes big in her too-thin face and Viktor poured everything into the performance for her. In his mind, they were back on the small pond in his small village and the only sounds was the sounds of birds calling out overhead and his mother’s soft, chanting-songs encouraging him to skate as beautifully as he could. 

It was the last time she saw him skate. 

~

Viktor stayed with Yakov and his wife Lilia after that. It was easier than just staying in the dorms and he was younger than any of the other skaters. She pushed him as a dancer and Yakov as a skater and he let the ice be a map of his feelings and desires, of his need to express the ideas that bubbled up inside when he saw a performance, a downpour of rain, or even a simple piece of music played by a street musician. Anything was possible and he was positive that he could do anything.

Lilia and Yakov saw it and even with their gentle words, the routine and discipline soon drowned out everything else. Nothing else mattered but climbing higher and higher. He wanted to show the world how much he loved skating. He wanted to reach out and inspire people. 

And so it went, year after city after competition. If he kept skating and kept pulling out all the stops, then people would watch him. He’d hear their clapping, see their smiles and once in awhile, inspire a skater to reach for the same heights he was already climbing. 

Even when it was just him and Yakov and the coterie of skaters that he gathered over the years, Viktor found himself straining to keep that element of surprise in everything he did. It was hard when reaching out grasped nothing but empty air. No longer did he have warm hands enfolded in his, encouraging his steps and sharing laughter along the way.  He had Makkachin, he had his small rebellions of skating on small rinks. He hid his now-signature hair under wooly hats and pretended to be just himself and not the ice skating darling of Russia. 

At night, he held his poodle to him, listened to music and tried not to think of how it would work in his next performance. It was sometimes so overwhelming, it made him sick and shake and he wanted nothing more than to break his skates and run away from St. Petersburg and the expectations laid on him. But every time the dark thoughts threatened to swamp him and pull him down into the icy depths, he received a letter or a picture of a skater that babbled how he was _their _inspiration for skating.__

____

It was the first time he saw the young Japanese skater and he wondered when their paths would cross. Years went by-- and they never were on the same level of competitions. Viktor pushed it to the back of his mind, figuring when the time was right, he would see the person that wrote him such enthusiastic letters and pictures of a small poodle that was the miniature twin of Makkachin. Years went by and he soon forgot all about the skater that didn't make any dashing headlines.

____

~

Not until the latest Grand Prix.

~

  
  


He knew his name: Yuuri Katsuki. The name Yuuri stuck in his mind because of Yuri Plisetsky--but Yuri had more of an online presence that Yuuri did and when Viktor tried to research the erstwhile skater, he hit the Yuri he knew first. It was completely frustrating when all he wanted to do was find some personal information about him. 

_ No Viktor, that sounds wrong-- you don’t want actual personal information, but you just want to know more about him than just his stats.  _

Yuuri Katsuki wasn’t a bad skater; his admittance into the Grand Prix Final was a testament to that. He had been dimly aware of the other skater before; anyone that rose through the ranks had him vaguely interested, even if didn’t always remember names. Yuuri, though--he had remembered. He remembered the way his step sequences overtook anything else; the expressions he wore and one time, when he had seen him practicing alone, the way he let go and truly shone on the ice.

He had never been in Yuuri’s position before-- to be so high and then fall so far; he’d never fallen so many times during a major performance. He’d never cried when the  _ audience _ could see him. Not that he had seen Yuuri cry more than the frustrated tears on the ice; but everyone did that. Tears from exhaustion or happiness of defeat. All but the implacable Viktor Nikiforov. 

_ Everyone fell: on the ice, from high places and they cried. He just learned that to do it in public would fracture the carefully constructed image he had made for himself since a young age _ . 

He had walled him off so perfectly, even when reaching out to Yuuri to take a photo with him. Yuuri wasn’t on SNS or Instagram; any photos were taken with friends. That night, Viktor had been determined to collect at least  _ one _ photo with Yuuri, with the skater that had even gotten Yuri’s attention.

He had gotten a lot more than just  _ one _ impersonal photo; his phone was filled with several of him dancing and laughing; of Yuuri draped over him and dark eyes wide and filled with a drunken happiness. He had video that someone sent to him of him and Yuuri dancing a tango; even off the ice, each step was filled with music and skill and all of Yuuri's attention had been focused just on him. 

He had asked Chris about Yuuri; they had been in Juniors at the same time, even if Yuuri hadn’t ever said much. Chris said that he was incredibly closed off most of the time, only speaking to the woman that was training him. He had a few rinkmates that he talked to, but … 

_ He closes himself off in a different way than I do. He’s more visible with his emotions, but only when he fails.  _

Through fansites, he knew Yuuri had skated competitively since he was thirteen, had a poodle and lived in Japan. He had a legion of devoted fans that followed him with a fervor that was almost surprising, but not wholly unexpected. Even if he fumbled, he still had talent in spades. Viktor wanted to see what he could really do, given the right hand guiding towards the path towards gold.

After several months and the end of a season, the last thing that VIktor had expected was to add another video to his scant-but-growing collection. He hadn’t expected it to be his free skate from the year and hadn’t expected to see the level of emotion that Yuuri had put into the skate.

_ When he skates with everything in him, he can shake the world _ , Viktor was far from the first person that saw the video and the comments that came with the link were off the charts. Not all were praising and some were downright vile, but all had noted that Yuuri Katsuki had some type of skill.

He wanted to ask, ‘where was this during the Grand Prix’ but Yuuri wasn’t there to ask. He watched the video again and again, analyzing it, watching the smile on his face as he reached out to the camera. This version of his routine was still filled with the painful longing of being alone, but with a heart calling out to be completed. 

Viktor was determined that Yuuri wouldn’t skate his best  _ alone _ anymore. He would show him how spread his wings and share that talent with the world. He wouldn’t be grasping for empty air. Viktor’s hands would be wrapped in his, spreading his wings so that he could fly across the ice. 

~


End file.
